On the fourth day of the Six Day War (8 Jun 1967), at
about 2 PM Sinai time (then, GMT+2), Israeli defense forces attacked the
USS Liberty about 14 miles off the coast of the Sinai peninsula, near El
Arish.

After ten official US investigations (including five congressional
investigations), there was never any evidence that the attack was made
with knowledge that the target was a US ship. There is
substantial evidence the attack was a tragic mistake caused by blunders
of both the US and Israel. Eight US presidents, Johnson, Nixon, Ford,
Carter, Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, and Bush (43), have each accepted the conclusion
that the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity.

Nevertheless, conspiracy theorists continue to claim the
Israelis knowingly attacked a US ship. By some estimates, there are more
conspiracy theories about the Liberty incident than about the
assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The focus of this research project is limited to the
question: "Did the Israelis know they were attacking a US ship?"

The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship is
the result of more than seventeen years of extensive research. The book is
derived from the doctoral dissertation The Liberty Incident, completed
at the Middle East Studies Institute of the Graduate School of International
Studies at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The dissertation
is based on over 500 personal interviews and more than 3,000 documents the
author acquired over ten years. Subsequently, additional interviews were conducted
and documents acquired which have been included in the book. The dissertation
is in the collection of the Library
of Congress (LCCN 98135843).

Subsequent to the publication of the book, I sued the National Security Agency under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and on July 2, 2004, the agency capitulated and released audio tapes collected by an NSA unit aboard a Navy EC-121 flying near the scene of the attack on 8 June 1967. On January 12, 2005, The United States Department of State released Vol. XIX of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, which further declassified Department of State, Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency and White House documents. The summary of Volume XIX includes three paragraphs about the Liberty incident.

This website is intended as a supplement to the research
material presented in The Liberty Incident. It is not the author's
intention to convince anyone of anything. Rather, the intent is to
provide access to primary and secondary evidence in order that an
interested researcher may have access to relevant evidence prior to
reaching a conclusion. Because of space limitations, it was not possible
to include the full text of all the material mentioned in the book. This
website will permit interested researchers to access materials from the
author's collection.

In the compilation of a study of this magnitude, it is
almost certain that some errors and inaccuracies will be included. Also,
there will be conflicting material. The author has made every effort to
eliminate typographical errors and omissions. Upon review, all
appropriate corrections will be made to make the data at this site as
precise and accurate as possible.